You may not have considered reinvent your SME business or you may be considering a change due to personal circumstances or market forces. Re branding, reinventing, or even starting over could be the right choice now.
“Businesses built to last are capable of being reinvented as often as necessary. They’re also built by people who are ready, able, willing and confident enough to reinvent their business or allow others to do it if they can’t do it themselves” – Quote by Llyod Shefsky, author of Invent, Reinvent, Thrive: The keys to Success for Any Start-Up, Entrepreneur or Family Business.
Often a reinvention is necessary when:
- Sales are down
- Employees have lost enthusiasm
- Customers are looking elsewhere
- New technology has made your product obsolete
- A competitor is overtaking you
- What you’re doing is simply no longer working.
It’s important to recognise that a reinvention or rebrand can help your business thrive, and instead of treating it as a last resort, considering it early on can help make it a much more successful process.
Here are 4 ways to reinvent your SME business:
1. Find out why you’re dealing with a slowdown
Many businesses will immediately offer discounts or focus on marketing when they hit a slowdown, but if you’re not fixing what’s actually broken, you won’t be able to achieve long-term success and you’ll be stuck with a short-term fix.
Identify and tends or themes; you could speak with your salespeople, who are directly interacting with customers, launch a survey for feedback, check out your competitor’s products and marketing, and compare your sales data to changes in the industry.
Monthly and quarterly reporting allows you to uncover insights into your business, including your marketing strategy, product development and sales numbers.
2. Create your strategy
Once your data has demonstrated that your current business approach isn’t working, your target market is no longer optimal, or your customer feedback is saying that your product isn’t quite right, you can focus on addressing the issues.
This means going over your business plan and making the necessary changes. You’ll also need to get your team onboard, review your systems and software to see if it’s up to the task, and design a new marketing plan.
3. Test your new ideas
Once you have decided which strategic direction to take as you reinvent your SME business, you’ll need an execution plan that allows you to test this strategy before you commit.
Your first idea won’t always be the best solution, and you may want to test the waters with one new service or product to see how it’s received, or launch a social media campaign that introduces your new niche.
Once this trial has finished you can evaluate the results and make any necessary adjustments before you roll your reinvention out on a large scale.
4. Invest in your business
Reinventing your business can be a little intimidating, and you may be tempted to play it safe. However, investing in your business will mean that you have the right tools and people to allow it to succeed and grow.
That means evaluating your strengths and weaknesses, hiring the people who can fill the gap, and ensuring you have the best tools, including software that’s intuitive, to grow your business.
You may find that you need to complete a digital transformation, to take advantage of changes in technology to better serve your customers, or focus on innovation to increase your competitive advantage.
If you’re planning to reinvent your SME business, call or email us today so we can help you through the reinvention process and ensure you have the best software to meet your needs.
